Did you ever read that book by Mona Domosh, American Commodities in an Age of Empire? The whole thing was completely fascinating to me; but one part I keep coming back to in my mind is the story of Heinz's pickles and the early efforts of Heinz's to market processed food. You see, in the 19th century, when people wanted to eat a particular thing they just made it themselves. I'm not talking about making a hero sandwich at 3am, either, I mean people canned their own foods and they churned their own butter and they made their own jam and even if they didn't milk their own cow they probably knew the person and the cow they were getting the cream from.
So Heinz's had a problem: they wanted to sell jars of pickles to people but they didn't know how to do it. For one thing people were making their own pickles and, for another thing, who the hell would want to buy a jar of pickles when they had no idea where the pickles came from or who made them? The damn things could have the cholera in them for all you know.
So, anyhow, you can read Domosh's book yourself if you like, but the main point is that Heinz's decided to sell their pickles by highlighting the purity of their pickling process. In order to do this they began to equate pickle processing with virginal femininity by filling up their factory with pure looking, white clad, ingénues and filling up their advertising campaigns with these well scrubbed lasses, too. Not only is it more convenient to not have to spend the whole day making pickles, mom, but also look at how pure these girls are… pink fingernails and all.
Well the entire thing obviously prompts a number of questions about the representation of gender in the media and also about early forms of marketing (using sex to sell pickles is one of the earlier examples of corporate synergy) but this isn't where I want to go with this…
Rather, what I want to say is that I'm really surprised by responses ranging from disbelief to outright disgust that I get from people when I tell them I have been making my own cheese and butter. I find it odd, I tell them, that you should be so sceptical and put off by this because, were it more than 100 years ago the response would be the opposite:
Case in Point:
Adam of 100 years ago:
Greeting, good sir or madam, do you see that I have returned from the market with this butter so neatly cut into a square and darkened with some yellow dye and wrapped up conveniently in aluminium foil?
Adam's friend of 100 years ago:
Good grief, sirrah, why on earth would you buy butter when you could easily make it yourself at home? Furthermore to the point, how can you trust a thing when you do not know who made it or what process was applied to its making? Any sort of disease could be ensconced in the buttery folds of that butter [my friends of 100 years ago are prone to tautological descriptors] ! Any dimwit with a pair of arms could have turned that churn, and not with nearly the love of our sweet old grandmother at home.
**
Actually the range of responses has been slightly more broad than I say. Some have reacted with outright disgust and then following this they have been so indignant about he fact that I would make my own butter that they have concocted an analysis of the price difference between travelling to the market to buy butter versus the cost of making butter at home in order to determine that I am, indeed, not saving any money by making my own butter.
There has been even more horror at the thought of me making my own cheese. This surprises me, too, because even when I insist that I sterilized everything and made sure only to buy fresh milk from the farmer's market right next door to me (Jean Talon), people still refuse to eat the cheese I made. Yet these same people are willing to put their trust in all sorts of corporate packaged cheeses from the supermarket. I find it so ironic because there have been repeated problems with corporate food processors over the last few years and (so far) I haven't even given anyone a mild case of gas.
Regardless, I feel a great deal of satisfaction for having attempted and succeeded to produce these dairy products. I was particularly proud the first time I tried to make butter and it actually became butter. It was like I didn't believe it was going to happen and it did. Plus, did you know that the process of butter making also produces buttermilk? I mean, where the hell else would buttermilk come from, I know, but I had never thought about it. Buttermilk is amazing for making pancakes and other things and if you make butter you will have your very own buttermilk, as well.
But there's more! If you make cheese you will also end up with whey. What the fuck is whey anyhow? I dunno, but it's great for making bread and I've been doing that too. Apparently, according to Inflight McMagazine's old roommate (to whom I gave a whole jar of fresh whey a couple of weeks ago) whey can be used for all kinds of healthy things, and I think it's what bodybuilder use to bulk up, too…but I don't really know how that all works.
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I know I'm kind of all over the place today but what I want to say is this: even before the so-called economic crisis started, a big faction in certain quarters was moving toward a more do-it-yourself approach to life. We can compost our waste, and we can cut down on our plastic, and we don't need to consume so much crap, and we can make and bake lots of things at home that are better and more pure than the consumer crap we've been fed for the last century, and appended to this is the fact that we can make our own music and we can make our own films and we can share with each other things that we've done at home and the corporations can't touch it (although they're trying). Probably you know what I'm saying here. I can't type anymore so I hope so...
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